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Panopticism & subjection/subjectivation

Lecture 13 December 2004 New Media New Citizenship

Marianne van den Boomen

• Rights (civil, political & social rights)

• Public sphere (vs private sphere, counterpublics)

• Subjection/subjectivation/subject positions

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Michel Foucault (1926-1984)

Power & panopticism – Power & knowledge & subject formation

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Structuralism

Academic school: theorizing society & relations between people (anthropology, sociology, philosophy, political sciences)

Political world view: connected to social movements of students, women, gays, communist parties, prisoners, patients etc.

Basic concepts: The formation of societies, cultures, individuals and groups are based on structures and structural relations

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Structuralists

Ferdinand de Saussurelinguistics, semiotics

Language & ideology

Claude Levi-Strauss anthropology, cultures, myths

• Jacques Lacan: psychoanalysis, symbolic order, split subject• Louis Althusser: marxism, ideological state apparatusses• Michel Foucault: institutions, archeology of power, micropolitics

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Structuralist characteristics

• Structural relations language & ideology

• Structures are historical and changeable

• History: not lineair but full of ruptures and contradictions

• The subject is not univocal autonomous and selfdetermining

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Human subject: myth or truth?

Critique on the notion of the free autonomous subject (reason, transcendental mind, no material constraints)

Cf. Barlow, Habermas

The paradox of the subject:

● This subject is true - subjects are (re)produced by structures● This subject is a myth - subjects are subjected to structures

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Double structure of the subject

• Freedom/unfreedom, myth/truth, individual/social: split subject, decentered subject

• Not a unity, not a center as in humanist world view:theoretical anti-humanism

The word ‘subject’:• Subject object • Area of study: ‘the subject of this course’ = ‘the object of this course’• Citizenship: ‘we are subjects of our government’ = subjected to & in charge

The subject = the ruler & the ruled

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Foucault on modern power

• Power is not a possession – power is exercised and distributedin a grid (dispositive) of institutions, instruments and classifications

• Power is not repression & prohibition – power is productive

● Power is not violence – power works by discipline & surveillance

• Power is knowledge, knowledge is power

• When there is power, there is also resistance, counterpower

• Power, knowledge and resistance produces the double edged subject

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Panopticism & the Panopticon

Bentham’s design: dicipline, surveillance, internalisation subject positions of guard+prisoner

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The Panopticon as metaphorPrisons, hospitals, schools, workplaces, laboratories:

• soft optic 'mind' power (instead of fysical power)

• discipline and surveillance(instead of violence and repression)

• individual compartimentalisation (instead of managing unordered masses)

• classification, normalisation and correction (instead of punishment and prohibition

• social inclusion and exclusion (instead of authoritive seclusion and exile or even extermination)

• internalisation of subject positions(instead of visible external authority)

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Internalisation of subjection

• The historical birth of the modern subject:- individuals with an inner life and conscience- able to give an account of one’s actions

Panopticon? Prisoners! Powerless poor people! Privacy invasion!

• Bentham: discourse of humanization, liberation and civilization• Total? Only when embodiment is ignored

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Digital subjection 1Negative: the total digital Panopticon with total surveillance

Every citizen becomes a suspect subject:

• Spy satellites• Global Positioning Systems• GSM: mobile phone location• State databases (birth, marriage, tax, insurence etc.)• International surveillance (Echelon)• Non-state databases (data mining and profiles, Internet cookies, spyware)• IP-numbers, Internet Service Providers• WebCT: tracking students

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Counterpower: rights

Global/universal rights:• Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948 UN)• International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights• National Constitutions

Right on privacy, protection of the private sphere, regulation of recording personal data

Digital civil rights organizations:• Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org)• Bits of Freedom (www.bof.nl)

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Problems with digital civil rights

• Rights adresses states - but the Internet surpasses state bounderies

- global Internet regulation – but by whom?

• Privacy invasion also comes from the market - Fraser: economic private sphere is liberalized and deregelulated- subjection by free choice

• Based on a clear distiction between public and private- but on the Internet the distinction is blurred or useless

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Digital subjects 2Positive: digital Panopticon = Panopticon deconstructed

• The counterpower of communication - no isolating walls between individual subjects

- talking as comfort and tactical insubordination• The counterpower of knowledge

- digital technology can be hacked- easy distribution of individual knowledge

• The power of counterpublics - digital communities of fans, consumers, women, cultural groups- diversity, fragments, collectives

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Digital (in)visibility tactics

Making the subjects/suspects invisable or untracable:

• Peer-to-peer networks (Kazaa)• Free PGP encryption software• Anonimizing software

Making the power & knowledge visible:

• Art/activism projects on tracking surveillance camera’s • Reproducing and distributing secret government reports• Witness projects of human rights violations • Daily updates of local speed control and flash camera’s • Sites with maps of public buildings and institutions• Manuals of how to make fireworks or bombs

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Poststructuralist, postmodern subjects?

• not based on unitary subjects, but on relations, exchanges and communication

• not private and autonomous, not collective and transcendental

• flexible mix of collective and fragmented elements

• public-private co-construction